In death, calls for a renewed look at David Dinkins' NYC mayoralty

David Dinkins, New York City’s first Black mayor, took over a city riven by racial strife and economic woes, and sought to unite the 7.3 million residents he liked to say made up a "gorgeous mosaic."

When Dinkins — who died Monday at 93 — lost his bid for reelection as mayor to Rudy Giuliani in 1993, racial and economic headwinds that helped sweep him into office four years earlier were widely considered the reason for his defeat. A floundering economy cost the city hundreds of thousands of jobs. His failure to stem racial unrest like the Crown Heights riots of 1991 and skyrocketing crime rates, became an unfavorable consensus about his mayoralty.

Now, some of his allies and friends, as well as the man who got his start in government under Dinkins’ City Hall, Mayor Bill de Blasio, are calling for a reconsideration of his legacy.

Speaking Tuesday to WCBS 880’s Wayne Cabot, de Blasio lamented that Dinkins hasn’t gotten more credit for beginning the city’s renaissance, including the "Safe Streets, Safe City" program. That’s how the city was able to hire thousands more cops, after which the high crime rate of the 1980s and early 1990s began to drop.

"I hope now, Wayne, that his legacy will be examined more fairly, because he really is the guy that helped set this city on a path to safety," de Blasio said of Dinkins. "There’s so many things he did that he never got his due, and I hope now there’ll finally be that sort of fair assessment of all the good he did for us."

Ongoing racial unrest was a key issue that made him a one-term mayor. It began in August 1991, after a Black boy in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights was accidentally killed by a Jewish driver, sparking three days of riots that included 20 Black young people surrounding a Jewish student, who was stabbed to death.

Wilbur Rich, an emeritus professor of political science at Wellesley College and author of the 2006 book "David Dinkins and New York City Politics: Race, Images, and the Media," said expectations set for Dinkins — a potential healer of racial discord that had long splintered the city and country — were unachievable by any but the most extraordinary leader, particularly in a city as geographically and racially fragmented as New York.

"People saw him as this person that could help get the races together," Rich said, adding: "It was a time of racial turmoil and also crime in the city of New York, and Dinkins came at a time that people thought he could reconcile all the problems in New York. The media had created this image of him which was not true. He was a good person, he meant well, but he was not a civil rights leader. He was a politician. They were asking him to do things he wasn’t capable of doing, and that’s what led to the problems in Crown Heights" and elsewhere.

"He was not a magician by any stretch of the imagination," he said.

Nevertheless, Rich said, the mayoralty was pathbreaking, coming on the heels of Jesse Jackson’s unsuccessful but groundbreaking run for president in 1988.

"Dinkins will go down in history as the first Black mayor of New York, and that was a very important breakthrough in the civil rights history, because Black people were trying to make the statement nationally that we could manage things."

Carl Weisbrod, who founded and led the city's Economic Development Corp. under Dinkins and more recently a senior de Blasio official, credited Dinkins with helping catalyze the city’s recovery from the stock market crash of 1987.

"When Mayor Dinkins took office in 1990, the city was in a very deep recession and many companies at that time were thinking of leaving New York and really relocating in suburbia. Largely that didn’t happen," he said.

Under Dinkins, the economic development units scattered across the city were consolidated into one agency that has since been wielded by each of Dinkins’ three successors — including de Blasio, to get personal protective equipment manufactured during the pandemic. Dinkins also was responsible for helping broker a longtime lease of a piece of land in Queens to the United States Tennis Association, clinching the U.S. Open for the city and all the tourist and fan dollars.

Weisbrod noted that one of Dinkins’ last acts as mayor was helping broker an agreement to bring Disney to 42nd Street, redevelopment that helped begin to clear the Times Square area of sex shops — improvements often credited to Giuliani.

David Paterson, New York State’s only Black governor and a longtime friend of Dinkins, recalled being 11 when they first met. Paterson’s dad, Basil A. Paterson, was running for State Senate and Dinkins for Assembly, each from rival political clubs in Harlem.

"We were taking down his posters," David Paterson recalled with a laugh. The two later became close, and Paterson worked on Dinkins’ campaigns in 1981 and 1985 for borough president.

The former governor is among several friends of Dinkins who hope there will be a rethinking of his reputation as mayor. Dinkins, he said, was a sound steward of the city’s coffers and helped enact policies to begin the crime decline.

"I think right now, his legacy is misunderstood," Paterson said, adding: "I’m hoping that his passing gives us a second glance at history, and we’ll find out what a good mayor he was."

Even after losing the election and leaving the mayoral residence, Gracie Mansion — or as he liked to joke, after getting fired and evicted from public housing — Dinkins stayed connected to civic life, appearing at galas and civic luncheons.

Among his survivors, according to a family statement, are his children, David N. Dinkins Jr., and Donna Dinkins Hoggard; a sister, Joyce Dinkins Belton, along with a grandchild, nieces, nephews, "god children, and a vast number of beloved friends."

The family asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Howard University Scholarship Fund, the Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture, the Montford Point Marine Association, the Harlem Junior Tennis and Education Program or New York Junior Tennis and Learning.

"A memorial service will be held sometime after the COVID crisis ends," the statement said.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.